Monday, January 18, 2010

Books!

Hey everyone! I'll be posting pictures from Florida soon, but I wanted to get these book reviews out. I'm starting a new semester tomorrow, so this week is going to be a little hectic but hopefully I'll get through it!

The first book I read was Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles. You could read it in a night if you really felt like it, and it was pretty entertaining. It was interesting to compare the Holmes from the book to the one in the old shows and now Robert Downey Jr.'s interpretation. To be honest, the "book Holmes" seemed a lot more condescending and frankly annoying than any other ones. Maybe something picks up in the translation from text to film. Anyway, it was fun to read and as one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most recognizable works it's probably important to be familiar with it from a purely cultural standpoint.

My sister gave my mom the second book, and then she gave it to me. It was When You Are Engulfed in Flames, but David Sedaris. It's a collection of comedic personal essays and they are hilarious! I told my mom afterward that I would never be able to write anecdotal essays because I would have to admit to the world what an amazingly awful person I am...and I would probably end up alienating every family member, friend and aquantance I have ever had. But I am perfectly content to laugh at/with other people braver than I. I would definitely reccomend this book to anyone interested in the genre, and even though it is pretty large I finished it in two days because it is so hard to put down.

The last book was The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. What a depressing book. If your idea of a good time is giving up all hope in humanity and spending the rest of your night curled up crying in the fetal position in the loneliest corner of your room, then this book was made for you. It was...good, though, if that's really the right word. I saw that they had made a movie based on the book last year, so I'll probably end up being sad and masochistic and see it. I guess I would say it was tough to read but worth it in the end...probably.

Hope you all have a great night!

2 comments:

  1. I recently reread "The Hounds.." to my son and found it to be incredibly tedious. Maybe I was thinking of it too much from the perspective of a 12 yo!?! Thanks for the reviews.

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  2. Glad to have you back.

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